A review of Curcumin and its role in disease prevention and treatment

Curcumin is a polyphenolic compound that has yellow color and extracted from the root plant of curcuma longa. In East traditional, this compound is widely used for the treatment of various diseases. In recent years, much attention of modern medicine to this compound, led an extraordinary and remarkable properties of this material is proved. Curcumin has a wide range of health benefits, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, anti-microbial and anti-viral, anti-cancer and etc. In addition to its therapeutic effects, clinical traial studies on the oral dose of curcumin have demonstrated that curcumin intake to 8 gr/day has no toxicity to the body. These properties, with the lack of toxicity, caused this unique compound seriously be attractive for pharmaceutical research centers. In recent years, the therapeutic effects of curcumin in particular on cancer, has been investigated. Despite these excellent properties, curcumin consumption faced with serious limitations. Curcumin has a low solubility in aqueous solvents (about 20 micrograms per milliliter). It also quickly destroyed in the physiological PH. this problems makes that Curcumin has low bioavailability and poor pharmacokinetics. To overcome these problems, great efforts were made to improve the solubility and stability of curcumin. For this purpose, several formulations have been done based on the encapsulation of curcumin, such as polymeric nanoparticles and nano-gels, surfactants, proteins, liposomes, phospholipids, conjugate, and etc. In many cases, these efforts have been associated with satisfactory results.